Black Bean and Couscous Salad

Sometimes when I get bored at work and have forgotten to bring a book with me I get on the good ol' internet and search for recipes.  I definitely don't NEED any more recipes in my arsenal considering the fact that I have had a subscription to Cooking Light since 2011, but it's not like I keep my magazines at work to flip through.  Last week I was searching allrecipes.com list of "healthy recipes".  I stumbled across this recipe and realized that: A. I had actually had all of the ingredients on hand to make it and B. It sounded both delicious and relatively easy to prepare for my lunches.  Here is the recipe, with some tweaks and tips.

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked couscous (I only used like 3/8 of a cup because that was all the couscous I had at the house and since I was just making it for myself I figured that would be enough)
1 1/4 cup chicken broth (according to Cooking Light the proper ratio of liquid:couscous is 1 1/4 cup to 1 cup.  Scale this down accordingly.)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
8 green onions, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 cup frozen corn, thawed (I just used a can of corn, drained)
2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained (I just used one)
salt and pepper to taste

I also added some halved cherry tomatoes because I thought it would be tasty, which it was.  I think I used 8 or 9 tomatoes total. I wasn't really counting thought

Directions:

Bring chicken broth to a boil. Stir in couscous. Cover pot with lid and remove from heat.  Let stand 5 minutes.
In a large bowl whisk together the olive oil, lime juice, vinegar, and cumin. Add green onions, red bell pepper, cilantro, corn, beans, and tomatoes (if using of course).  Toss to coat.
Fluff the couscous and break apart any chunks. Add to the bowl with the vegetables and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I LOVE the taste of both vinegar and cumin.  I used a bit more of both and added some to my tupperware of salad when I packed it for work. I was able to make this from start to finish in about 20 minutes or so.  That includes cutting all of my veggies.   This recipe is really tasty.  I packed some tortilla chips with my lunch and used this almost as a salsa of sorts.  But trust me this recipe stands well on its own.  It refrigerates really well and is delicious cold.  If any of you ever decide to make this and add anything else PLEASE let me know.  There were a bunch of suggestions on allrecipes.com if you want to explore those.

Yay for eating healthy and trying DELICIOUS new recipes!

~Tara